Most or many of you know by now I am a survivor of a brain bleed stroke on January 15th 2004 and right now that seem like so long ago but it will just be nine years come 15 January 2013! I found this site early January 2005 from a stroke support group guy the hospital has started to better inform us on what to expect after leaving the rehab floor of the hospital!

I enjoyed the group although many of those attending was much older than me and wealthy citizens in their own right and neighborhoods where you could see immediately that money was no issue for any of them! Right away, I learned strokes can and does happen to anyone at anytime no matter their ages!

However if you had money and insurance, getting what you need in terms of service, equipment and proper treatments was much easier to obtain and many of them had private rooms at the same hospital I was in during the same times but I never saw any of them!!!

I did wonder why I was asked if I had insurance and if I would be getting more out patient therapy so I could learn to walk? Then while in therapy I learned it was one of the best around town and sure enough I started walking in no time with the therapists they had at the clinic there! That's also when I learned about equipment needed and the HyperBaric oxygen treatments I may need for my brain to regain some functions!

Anyone having a stroke and survives is blessed to be in a good hospital then upon release can get proper care in the out patient clinic! Should you go to any hospital ER and get sent home before they diagnose a stroke, I think then is the time to try finding a different facility to treat you properly! So many folks have been sent back home and they had a stroke all along!! It's something wrong with that picture!

In my case it was so long before I got to the hospital after my stroke that my brain has started to shut down and I was 62 years old already! I was home alone when my wife came home and found me passed out!! I know every minute lost in getting to a hospital to be treated is brain loss! I'm so happy to be a survivor with my wife and more years to live with her by my side!!!

When I see married survivors I see a blessed couple and when I read or hear of divorces I pray for that family because it takes both people to survive any stroke!! I was so glad I had married again when the stroke came my way because I really don't think I could have made it on my own from how I was then!!

We are all blessed to be survivors then to have a companion by our side to give care we can't give ourselves! I'm so thankful for my wife, God knows!! I am having a better life and recovery for sure and it was her that pushed me around to my appointments in a WC and cared for me when I couldn't do it myself!! I will be forever grateful to her so long as I shall live on this earth!!!!!! :jig: